Major General John Hartley’s military career has positioned him to assist with the future of the nation and the world.
Major General John Hartley is definitely one person to have fighting alongside you in the trenches when faced with a common enemy.
Not surprising considering his exhaustive and highly decorated military career.
Graduating from the Royal Military College Duntroon in 1965, he then served in a number of harrowing tours during the Vietnam War starting in 1966, the first of which lasted a full 12 months when he was just 22 years old.
“I was wounded slightly on two occasions: shrapnel in my legs and I had a gun shot wound to my neck, but the real wound was on my second tour when I was shot through the chest,” Maj Gen Hartley says.
“Bullets penetrated my lung and my kidney and I spent six months in a hospital bed.”
In later years as a general he commanded the Australian Army’s Training Command, headed the Defence Intelligence Organisation and was Deputy Chief of the Army.
His next role was commanding Land Command Australia, which meant that he was commander of all of the Army’s combat forces until 2000 when he retired from the military.
His cool, calm and pleasant demeanor, along with his well-honed leadership qualities would make him an invaluable asset in any battle scenario, particularly in the corporate world he now inhabits.
“People often ask me what war is like and I say ‘have you seen Saving Private Ryan?’,” he explains.
“The early stages when they land on the beach: that’s war, it’s terrifying.
“Except its not quite war, there are two things that are worse than that.
“On the battlefield you can actually smell the battle, you can’t in a cinema, and the other thing is you know you’ve got a two hour film and you’re going home after that.
“But when you’re on the battlefield being shot at you think ‘God, how long is this going to last’.”
It’s hard to imagine that this particularly vivid scenario would also be the setting for someone’s best job. But that’s exactly how Maj Gen Hartley describes it.
“My best job was being a platoon commander, commanding men in battle,” he says.
“At the age of 22, that was my best job, my most character developing role.
“I think the greatest achievement was taking my platoon through Vietnam and suffering 30 per cent casualties but coming back with a group of fellows who were ready to go onto their next stage in life.”
And as it turns out the Australian Navy’s loss really was the Australian Army’s gain.
He says that it was the unfortunate passing of his father when aged 14 that forced him to look after his younger brothers and help his mother on the family’s pineapple farm on the Sunshine Coast.
By the time he and his family had come to terms with their loss, he was too old for consideration at the Jervis Bay naval school so he joined Duntroon after high school.
Born in Wales and arriving in Australia (via a South American farm where his father worked) at age 10, he now clearly considers himself as a local.
“I swear a lot and I call everybody mate,” he says.
Currently Maj Gen Hartley is director and CEO of local think tank Future Directions International after replacing long time friend and fellow serviceman, Major General Michael Jeffery.
And it seems his role, providing independent strategic analysis of Australia’s global interests, is very much interwoven with his personality.
“I think one of the most important characteristics anyone can have is to constantly move on, to constantly look to the future, to evolve and develop,” he says.
“We don’t have much appetite for considering the future, we deal with today’s problems today.
“But we are going to confront a series of problems globally and nationally which we haven’t experienced before: global population pressures, food security, water security, energy security, the concept of global warming.
“If we aren’t starting to think about them now and start preparing for them we will certainly be confronted by situations far worse than any global financial crisis.”
What is your fondest memory of the Royal Military College Duntroon?
Graduation.
Do you have a mentor?
As a young officer, all my commanding officers were mentors. As I got older I found it more difficult to acquire mentors. In fact I probably had the arrogance to think I knew more than my mentors.
Now I’ve got a lot of good friends who I listen to, but are they mentors? Probably not.
I certainly talk to (Maj Gen) Michael Jeffery, he’s a very sensible man and the chairman of my board and a very good friend – I think we were probably generals together for four to five years.
How frustrating is the three-year political cycle in terms of planning for the future?
I understand the political pressure, I’ve been involved on the political fringe for a large part of my life, but equally I think the population itself will soon demand much more as issues such as global population pressures, food security, water security, energy security become more obvious..
How grim is the future?
It’s potentially very grim.
One of these days we will be challenged, and my suggestion is we need to keep monitoring these issues as objectively as we can.
